Time wrote on Thursday about the Republican talking points:

As public opinion swings against the President, and in favor of impeachment proceedings, some have also embraced a careful strategy, describing their unwillingness to support the House Democrats’ inquiry as merely pragmatic: it’s a distraction from other important legislative work. Others, speaking to a committed Republican base, are describing the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry as an unhinged vendetta against President Trump and an unconstitutional effort to reverse the results of the 2016 Election.

McKinley on the distraction

Congressman McKinley has an op-ed on the Trump impeachment in the opinion section of today’s Wheeling News-Register. In it, he claims that important business is not getting done because of the focus on impeachment:

Over the last year a million illegal migrants were taken into custody at our southern border — the highest level since 2007. A renegotiated trade deal with two of our largest trading partners — Canada and Mexico — is stalled. Skyrocketing prescription drug prices continue to increase health care costs on Americans.

Yet instead of seriously addressing these issues, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and liberal Democrats in Congress have begun an unfair, politically motivated impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump. Rather than working on issues to improve the lives of Americans, Pelosi and her allies are instead rushing headlong into a fight that will divide the country.

As for "working on issues to improve the lives of Americans," McKinley says nothing about the first two years of the Trump administration when Republicans controlled both houses yet did nothing except pass a huge tax cut for corporations and the top 1%. Nor does he mention that Senate Majority Leader McConnell has simply refused to bring numerous pieces of House-passed legislation to the floor or that the House is currently in recess. He has his talking point, however.

McKinley on the “vendetta”

McKinley, as he did with the Parkersburg reporter earlier this week, compares the Democrat’s action toward Trump to Republican impeachment of Clinton twenty years ago suggesting that both were/are wrong. Additionally, McKinley again suggests that he would not have voted to impeach Clinton:

Using impeachment as a tool to take down a political foe does damage to the institutions of the presidency and Congress and will divide the country. Republicans were wrong to deploy it against Bill Clinton. Democrats are wrong to do it today.

Spare me your self-righteousness, Congressman. I checked and only 5 Republicans voted against the first perjury charge, 13 against the second charge, and 12 against the obstruction. You want us to believe that you would have voted against the wishes of Newt Gingrich and House leadership? I guess you can say anything if you weren’t there.

As for using the word “vendetta,” look at the title of the op-ed:

End Vendetta and Find Solutions for Americans